View of the new Parliament building.
Credit: PTI Photo
The Lok Sabha elections in India is around the corner, with the country going to polls through April and May, and results slated to be declared on June 4.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP is aiming to cross the 400-mark in the lower house of the Parliament, while Congress is looking to provide a tougher contest with the help of its I.N.D.I.A. bloc members.
After the 2019 elections, BJP currently has the clear majority in the Parliament while Congress is a distant second. Other major parties are DMK, Mamata Banerjee's TMC, and YSRCP.
Mamata, notably, has decided to contest the West Bengal seats alone walking away from seat-sharing talks with I.N.D.I.A. partner Congress.
BJP in 2019 won 303 seats in the Lok Sabha out of a possible 543 that are up for grabs. The total possible strength of the house is 545.
In the 2014 general elections, BJP had managed to win 282 seats, marking an improvement in the next Lok Sabha polls.
Interestingly, in the 2019 elections Shiv Sena had 18 seats and NCP 5 in the Lok Sabha. Now, both parties have split, with Eknath Shinde's faction taking the Sena name, forcing party-founder Bal Thackeray's son, Uddhav, to form the Shiv Sena (UBT). Veteran politician Sharad Pawar, too, has seen his nephew join the NDA fold taking with him the NCP name and symbol, forcing the four-time CM of Maharashtra to come up with NCP (SP) as his party name and get a new symbol as well.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections is bound to see these seats split between the currently-ruling NDA and the current opposition.